The Lesbian Farmers of Stardew Valley
by signythesage
Summary: Dagny escapes the corporate grind to build a life, a home, and - if she's lucky - a family on Grandpa's old farm. But forces both familiar and fantastic present challenges more daunting than anything in the office.
1. Fourth Cup of Coffee

Dagny sat at her desk, phone in hand, waiting for the man on the other end to return. He'd excused himself and set the phone down moments after answering it. Her free hand twirled a pen, and her eyes stared at the computer's clock. Two older monitors occupied a central position on her desk. One displayed a spreadsheet of various part numbers, quantities, and locations of said quantities. The other screen had a number of open email windows. The top one was from a frantic maintenance supervisor in Cedar Falls. He had used his last tire to replace one that the potholes had eaten, but he still needed two more. Without them, the two trucks currently stuck there full of everything from cereal and toilet paper to cases of JoJa Cola cans were going nowhere. And she didn't need to be reminded yet again of how it made the company look bad when store shelves went empty.

"Sorry about that, Dagny, it's just been one of those days," the stores manager in Pinkerton said with what Dagny thought of as a rich cowboy accent. One of those days indeed.

"No problem, I just need a couple 5076-D4 tires sent to Cedar Falls and I see you have a bunch there."

"Well, I wouldn't say a bunch…" He chuckled a little. "And we go through a lot of 'em this time of year."

Her eyes narrowed. He had ten, and he only used an average of six each month. He could do without two of them until next week's shipment.

"Yes, I know, and we got two trucks stuck in Cedar Falls right now that need them too," Dagny explained. "And you're the closest location that has any."

"Yeah, but if I don't keep up to my allocation I'll end up on the shortage report. What?" The last word was muffled.

"Alright, I'll be right there," Dagny heard as if from down the hall.

"Hey, sorry but I got to go." His voice was back to normal now. "I'm sure you can find 'em somewhere else." He hung up. Dagny felt the urge to reach through the phone and punch him.

"Hey Dagny, how's it going?" said a more ominous voice behind her as soon as she had put the phone back. She rotated her chair around to face Bob, her boss.

"What's up?"

"How's it coming with that quarterly inventory report?"

"It's in progress. Right now I'm trying to get some tires up to Cedar Falls because we've got two trucks stuck there."

"It looks like you got four extra ones nearby in Granite Hills, just send those."

"Those are -D2s, the trucks will never make it through snowy mountains with those. I don't know why Granite Hills even has them."

"I think it'll be fine. It hasn't snowed that much."

Dagny glanced out the windows across the room. Snow was falling that very moment. The phone in Bob's office began to ring.

"Finish the quarterly by the end of the week, alright? I need to get it to the auditors," he said before rushing back to his office. It was currently late Thursday afternoon, and that report would take the better part of a day even if she ignored everything else that needed doing. Thank the Gods his phone rang.

Dagny spent the next ten minutes pouring and stressing over stock levels, allocations, and material requisitions. She had hatched a brilliant plan to get the two 5076-D4 tires delivered to Cedar Falls and get the new alternator and wipers that Northville needed up to them on top of it. She whirled around to write it on her cube's small whiteboard before she forgot it all. But one thing was missing. Her dry erase marker was gone. Someone must have snatched it while she had been down getting lunch earlier. It was far from the first time that such things had disappeared. She unlocked and opened her desk's little filing cabinet. There were a few more markers in there somewhere, even if it meant using a weird color. Sitting on top in the upper drawer was the permaculture magazine she'd bought at the airport bookstore that time they'd sent her to New Irontown to do an inventory count. That trip she'd gotten up at 3am, after working the day before, to get to the airport and didn't get back to her tiny apartment until 2am that Saturday morning. In between had been ten-hour days followed by dinner out with people she had absolutely nothing in common with, and who kept trying to get her to drink when she didn't want to. At least it was free dinner. Lots of people didn't even get that. Beneath the magazine was a big old brown envelope. She remembered that it had something to do with Grandpa's old farm. She gently opened it and looked at a couple of the photos inside. One was of Grandpa standing next to another man and holding a salmon nearly a meter long. Another was of him standing next to a display of produce with a ribbon pinned to his shirt. On the ground at his feet was a pumpkin that was bigger than a truck tire. It almost didn't seem real. How could anyone actually get a pumpkin that big?

The sound of footfalls on thin office carpet came down the aisle. Dagny quickly stuffed the photos back inside and tossed the envelope on top of the magazine on her desk. She tried to look busy on her computer.

Marilyn stopped right outside Dagny's cube. The mug of coffee in her hand must have been at least her fourth one of the day. But no matter how much caffeine she drank, Marilyn always looked haggard.

"Hi Dagny," Marilyn said slowly. "Were you able to get those orders closed? The vendor keeps asking for payment."

"Oh, those GPS units in Jenxton? Yes, handled this morning."

"Thank you, Dagny."

As Marilyn shuffled away, a terrifying thought occurred to Dagny. That could be her in thirty or so years, still working in a drab office, jumping through corporate hoops just to stay alive from one dreary year to the next. Marilyn ought to be spending her golden years knitting, petting a cat, and watching TV, not toiling away serving the Joja empire. Her chronic illness required medication that she would never be able to get without the company medical plan, so she had no choice but to keep working. What if Dagny ended up the next Marilyn? She wasn't exactly the type that people were eager to give opportunities to — a medium height, slightly chubby introvert with short blonde hair, dark-rimmed glasses, and no connections at all beyond her father and the woman running the corner store who sometimes talked to her.

The green of the tree on the cover of the magazine caught Dagny's eye. A woman with dark braids and dirty denim overalls stood smiling under the tree. That pulled Dagny's thoughts to Grandpa's farm. She sighed. She didn't know anything about running a farm or growing crops. There was way more to it than just digging and watering. But could she learn? She glanced at the magazine again. Others had. Dagny pulled the paperwork out of the envelope.

"…title of Folkvangr Farm in the county of Stardew Valley is hereby transferred to Dagny Gröngård on this Fourteenth Day of Spring…" A wave of frission flashed through her body as she sat there holding the old papers. This could be it — her way out. She might never get another. Dagny didn't have a great deal of savings, but it out to be enough to last for a short time. Things should be less expensive far from the city. It was a farm after all, so she could grow some of her own food. And clearly there were places around to fish. Suddenly her cube and the whole office seemed a little less real. She didn't belong there. Home was calling.

"Oh Dagny?" She was startled by the sudden sound of the boss's voice behind her. No one usually got close to her without her knowing.

"Let me know your availability this weekend. We have a lot of orders to get processed by year-end. Is that a magazine on your desk during work hours?" Dagny's fists clenched. Another weekend of putting in extra hours for which she'd get no overtime? No. She stood up and turned to face him.

"You know what, Bob? I quit. You can do some work yourself for a change." She stuffed the envelope and magazine into her purple backpack, grabbed her worn brown jacket, and stormed out.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" Bob yelled after her. "I'm not done talking to you!"

"Well I'm done with you," Dagny said quietly as she stepped into the elevator.


	2. Road Trip

Dagny sat on an old bench at the bus terminal with a small paper cup of coffee in hand. She wore her purple plaid shirt and grey cargo pants with her jacket tied by the sleeves around her waist. The rest of her clothes and few other possessions were stuffed into the backpack and duffel bag at her feet. A Joja paycheck never bought much unless you were a manager or higher, especially the way the rents in the city were. Some of the other passengers also sported street clothes and duffel bags. Others had shirtsleeves and satchels. Not the fancy kind like you saw downtown though. These were the people with crummy office jobs that still made you dress like you were a banker. She glanced at the large overhead clock — 07:14. The 47 bus should be appearing soon. Dagny had wanted to take the train, which, while more expensive, would take about half as long. But none of the scheduled trains stopped in Pelican Town. So, a day on the bus it was.

It had taken a few weeks to find someone to take over her apartment lease, and sell or donate some of her various household items that Dagny had neither interest nor money to ship out to the farm. And of course there wouldn't be much that could be done on the farm while it was still winter anyway.

Finally the bus came. Dagny watched the buildings grow smaller as the bus left the city. She thought of the few things she might actually miss. The central library, especially those rare occasions when she got to go on a weekday when it was the kind of quiet that a library should be. The pizza place in the basement mall several blocks down from the office. It was hot, small, and often crowded, but the pizza was worth enduring the hostile environment. She wondered how long her high score in that jet fighter game at the arcade next door would last. The… nah, that was about all she'd really miss. She doubted that Pelican Town would have a pizzeria or an arcade. Maybe they'd have a library?

Around noon the bus stopped at a truck stop for fuel, and so that everyone still on the bus could use a proper bathroom and find food. The tiny "bathroom" on the bus was little more than an outhouse. It looked and smelled like it hadn't been cleaned since the bus was built. In the cafeteria area, Dagny had found herself a small table by the windows when a young woman with curly dark green hair and a short black skirt appeared beside her.

"Can I sit here?"

Dagny gestured to the empty chair while setting down her chicken sandwich. She hadn't been looking for company, but wouldn't say no to sitting across from a cute girl.

"I saw you on the bus, so I guess that makes you a bit less of a stranger than everyone else here."

"Everyone else not also on the same bus anyway," Dagny couldn't resist saying. The woman smiled a little, either sharing Dagny's odd sense of humor or at least mildly amused by it.

"I'm Jade."

"Dagny."

"I don't suppose you're also heading to Birch Falls?"

"Nope. Pelican Town."

"Oh yeah? Been there once or twice. My parents have a farm near Birch Falls. I'm heading back from school to help out with spring planting."

"What are you studying?"

"Geology. Minor in archeology."

The girl liked to dig, apparently. Dagny realized that she would need to learn to like it too. She figured it'd be a lot easier than learning to like inventory reports.

"You don't like pickles?" Jade asked, eying the small pile of castoff pickle slices on Dagny's sandwich wrapper. Dagny hated pickles. Pickled cucumbers anyway.

"Nope."

"More for me! If… if you don't mind…"

Dagny giggled. Her love of pickles was cute, if a bit weird.  
"Help yourself." And help herself she did.

"So do you do your own pickling and stuff on the farm?" Dagny asked when Jade was done eating them all.

"Yeah, sometimes! I thought you didn't like them though?"

"I don't, but it occurs to me that you could make all kinds of fresh stuff on a farm."

"Oh yeah, for sure. Just wait until Fall, my mom makes the best pumpkin pie ever. From our own pumpkins."

"That's so cool."

"And actually this bracelet I made myself." She put her hand out on the table to reveal it. "It's mostly just pebbles I found that had a hole in them, but these ones" — she pointed to several purple stones — "are real amethyst. A couple I found digging new plots. The others…" She lowered her voice. "Sneaking into the gravel mine at night to look for treasure." Her face beamed. Dagny couldn't help but smile.

"Wow, yeah, it must have take a long time to make. Especially the plundering a forbidden mine part. Is it a haunted forbidden mine?"

Jade laughed. "It might be!"

"So what brings you to Stardew Valley?" Jade asked.

"Taking over my grandfather's old farm. Couldn't stand to be cooped up in that Joja office any longer. I can't say I really know much about farming, but I don't plan to let that stop me."

Jade smiled. "Awesome. I'm sure you'll do great! Well, I'm going to go use the bathroom before it's time to get back on the bus."

"Okay, I'll see you back on the bus I guess." Dagny mentally kicked herself for not being able to say anything better than that back to a cute girl who was clearly at least a little into her. Or was it just extroverted friendliness? Dagny watched her walk away. Jade was a little taller and a little thinner than Dagny. Her hair fell not quite halfway down her back, partly covering her black galaxy-print tank top. Her black skirt allowed plenty of room for her high black boots with shiny silver buckles. She also had a messenger bag of the same aesthetic. Dagny watched her for a moment longer than was probably normal before returning to the remainder of her sandwich.

Dagny was not at all surprised when Jade plopped down beside her on the bus. She would have been a bit disappointed if she hadn't. Some of the ride was spent in comfortable relative quiet, looking out the window at things that were quite familiar to one of them and totally new to the other. In addition to her near-encyclopedic knowledge on the towns, landmarks, and geographical features of the area, Jade proved to be a font of information about farm life — especially on things that one might find buried in the ground.

"And when I was helping Mom expand the south field, I found an actual buried chest. It didn't have any gold, but it did have a thick old book in a language that probably hasn't been spoken in centuries. I gave it to one of the history professors at the university."

"What did they say?"

"Last I heard, he was checking with a colleague at another university on it. He said it's definitely old, but it's not any language he's familiar with. And he must know like a dozen."

"Wow. Quite a find."

"I heard a rumor that someone in a nearby town found an ancient book of witchcraft. I can't help but wonder if that's what this one was."

"I wonder if I'll find one on my farm."

"Maybe!"

"I'll have to save it for you if I do."

"Yeah, please do!"

According to Jade, that old red windmill on a hill meant that they were just a few minutes away from her town. She fumbled about in her bag for a moment before tearing off the wrinkled corner of a notebook page. She wrote her phone number and email address on it and handed it to Dagny.

"We should definitely keep in touch! It can be hard to make new friends out here sometimes."

"Yeah, for sure." Dagny shoved the piece of paper into a pocket. "Hmm, I don't really have any paper on me."

Jade pulled the whole notebook out, a simple black spiral notebook with several stickers of dragons on the cover. She quickly thumbed through to find another page with empty margins, then handed it to Dagny along with a pen.

Dagny noticed that the page seemed to be a map of where various kinds of crystal formations could be found in a local cave. She scribbled her own contact information in the margin.

Jade closed the notebook and stuffed it back into her bag. She tossed in the pen. The bus took an exit from the highway and into a small town. It slowed to a stop in front of an old strip mall. About a third of the shop spaces looked to have been abandoned long ago. One of them had "Say no to Jo!" graffitied on the window in large red letters. A pizzeria, a barber, and a hardware store were among the holdouts.

"Well, this is my stop," Jade said. "I'll probably be busy but hopefully I can come visit at some point."

"Oh yeah, for sure. Maybe after I've made the place presentable. It's probably been years since anyone has been there."

"I'm sure you'll get it in shape. I hope your first planting goes well. It's not like city life, that's for sure!"

Jade stood and picked up her bag. "Ah, there's my brother waiting for me. Take care. Stay in touch!"

"Definitely!"

Dagny watched Jade walk down to a young boy slightly shorter than her, her green hair bouncing gently behind her. Dagny pondered whether it was mere loneliness or something more that kept her watching Jade until the bus was down the street.

With the bus mostly empty now and nothing but open land and trees out the window, Dagny's thoughts naturally settled on her new home. What would Pelican Town actually be like? Grandpa's photos were all decades old at this point. The town will have changed a lot since then. So would the farm. Had anyone even been there since he retired?

The bus puttered to a stop in a shady glen with a few purple trees. A medium-height woman with dark orange hair was the only one waiting for the bus. Besides her, the stop looked quite deserted. There were no buildings anywhere in sight. The woman approached when Dagny stepped off the bus.

"You must be Dagny, coming to take over the old vacant farm. Lewis sent me to come get you. I'm Robin, the town carpenter."

Dagny followed Robin along old stone and dirt paths. Once or twice she saw a house in the distance, but they didn't go in that direction. Finally they came upon a tiny cottage with a large amount of wood piled on the porch.

"Here we are."

Dagny stared in disbelief at the land around her. Except for the immediate vicinity of the cottage, the grass was knee-high. Bushes and boulders lurked every few meters throughout the brush. Not far away the thicket became an actual wood of fairly dense trees. She wasn't sure exactly how long she stood there dazed, but Robin's voice eventually snapped her out of it.

"Oh come on, it's not that bad. It may be a little overgrown, but there's good soil under that mess!"

A little overgrown? Dagny had expected to find a farm, not a jungle.

An older man with short grey hair emerged from the cottage.

"Ah, you must be Dagny!" he said warmly. Already Dagny seemed to be more well-known here than she ever was back in the city.

"Yep, that's me."

"I'm Lewis, the mayor of Pelican Town. I trust you made it here alright. Well, here it is, Malcolm's old house. It's not the biggest in town, but it's got four good walls and a roof that doesn't leak. Not anymore anyway. It's rustic!"

Robin snickered. "More like crusty."

"Rude!" Lewis retorted.

From the way the old man's neck veins bulged at that moment, Dagny feared he just might have a heart attack right then and there. He didn't actually seem frail though. Dagny suspected that his appearance belied his true strength and wit.

"Don't listen to her, Dagny. She just wants you to hire her to upgrade your house."

"Hmmph." Robin crossed her arms.

"Now I've got you set up with everything you should need," Lewis continued. "Basic gardening tools, some seeds, plenty of firewood. Oh, and anything you might want to sell just put in that big ol' basket over there and I'll send it off to market for you each night. Just make sure you're in before two A.M. Even better if earlier."

"Why, what happens at two?"

Lewis chuckled. "Well, some people say that's when the spooks come out… But nobody really believes that! It wouldn't do for a farmer to be up into the wee hours when there's work to do at sun up, now would it?"

"No, I don't suppose it would."

"Anyway, I hope you have a good first night. Maybe introduce yourself to some of the townsfolk tomorrow, I think they'd appreciate that."

"Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks."

Lewis and Robin disappeared down the dirt path as the sun sank below the trees. Something rustled the tall grass a few dozen paces away, but it was now too dark to see what. Dagny stepped into the "rustic" cottage.

The small fire in the brick hearth cast the entire room — the only room — in a warm but dim orange glow. A small table, chair, bed, and an old TV rounded out the furnishings. Out of curiosity, she hit the TV's on/off button. It actually came on. A man stood in front of a weather map, promising plenty of sunshine on the morrow. Only a few other channels came in well enough to see anything but static. A cooking show and someone claiming to be a fortune teller. Apparently the spirits were currently happy. Always a good thing. She turned the TV off.

The bed was made up and turned down. Dagny couldn't recall the last time she'd even seen a bed this organized. It almost seemed a shame to mess it up by sleeping in it. Almost. Not wanting to risk the fire getting out of control during the night, Dagny extinguished it out before climbing into bed. Only the moonlight remained, seeping in through the single small window. The unfamiliar ceiling above her was barely visible. But it was hers.


End file.
